Zusammenfassung
Aufmerksamkeitsstörungen nach Hirnschädigungen sind sehr häufig und beeinträchtigen - wenn sie unerkannt und unbehandelt bleiben - in hohem Maße die Lebensqualität des Patienten und beeinflussen den Therapieerfolg erheblich. Aufmerksamkeitsdefizite sind kein einheitliches Syndrom, sondern treten - insbesondere bei fokalen Läsionen - je nach Schädigungslokalisation als spezifische Störungen unterschiedlicher Aufmerksamkeitsaspekte auf. Nach psychologischen und neuropsychologischen Theorien können mindestens vier Aufmerksamkeitsfunktionen unterschieden werden, nämlich „Alertness” (Aufmerksamkeitsaktivierung), „Sustained Attention” (längerfristige Aufmerksamkeit, Daueraufmerksamkeit), „Selective Attention” (selektive bzw. fokussierte Aufmerksamkeit) und „Divided Attention” (geteilte oder verteilte Aufmerksamkeit). Zur Erfassung spezifischer Störungen in diesen verschiedenen Bereichen ist eine differenzierte Aufmerksamkeitsdiagnostik notwendig, wobei sich computergestützte Verfahren besonders bewährt haben, da nur sie mit Hilfe von Reaktionszeitmessungen Aktivierungsparameter zuverlässig erfassen können.
Abstract
Attentional deficits after brain damage are very frequent and - if left untreated - are detrimental to quality of life and have a negative influence even on the success of neurological and neuropsychological therapy. Attentional deficits are not a unitary syndrome but depending on lesion location especially with focalised lesions very specific attentional deficits have to be expected. Following psychological and neuropsychological theories, at least four attentional functions can be separated: alertness as the ability to control arousal and response readiness, sustained attention and vigilance for long time maintenance of activation, selective attention to separate irrelevant from relevant features of a task and divided attention to share attentional resources between different aspects of a task. In order to detect specific impairment of these different attentional aspects, differentiated diagnostics are inevitable. It has been shown that for the assessment of attention functions computerised tests are especially valuable since precise measurement of response times is inevitable especially for the assessment of intensity aspects of attention.
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Prof. Dr. Walter Sturm
Neurologische Klinik · Klinische Neuropsychologie · Universitätsklinikum RWTH Aachen
Pauwelsstraße 30
52074 Aachen
Email: sturm@neuropsych.rwth-aachen.de
